1. Billy Crystal has hosted the Academy Awards nine times now and, well, perhaps that’s not such a good thing.

I laughed at a couple of jokes, I guess, but not very many of them. At least 90% of the material felt tired and flat, and I literally yawned through the Billy-Crystal-inserts-himself-into-the-Best-Picture-nominees opener. You know, it was funny the first, what, three times maybe? After that, it’s time to find a new shtick.

Although. Billy Crystal was still better than Anne Hathaway and James Franco last year. Pretty much anyone would have been.

2. I’m a bit ashamed to say I haven’t seen any of the Best Picture nominees this year, not one. (And I’m pretty interested in Hugo and The Artist, too. I just never got around to seeing them. I’m also somewhat interested in The Descendants and Midnight in Paris, and you’ll have to force me at gunpoint to watch War Horse or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.)

So, if you want on opinion on whether The Artist deserved to win over, say, The Help? Yeah, I can’t give that to you. I can ask . . . how in the hell did Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close even get nominated for Best Picture? Yeah, I didn’t see the movie, but it only got one other nomination, one, for Best Supporting Actor. It apparently wasn’t worthy of a nod for directing, lead acting, screenwriting, cinematography, editing, costuming, or sound mixing, but it managed a Best Picture nomination? What?

3. All in all, there really weren’t any big surprises this year. A lot of magazines and websites I looked at were insisting that George Clooney was the front runner, so I felt vindicated when Jean Dujardin won. HA! I was right!

4. I still can’t believe there were only two nominees for Best Original Song. Well, congrats, I guess, Bret McKenzie and The Muppets. You overcame fierce odds.

5. Fashion at any award ceremony is fun to look at. My own personal favorite?

Runners Up? Cameron Diaz, Angelina Jolie, and Rooney Mara.

Now as for worst . . . I have to give that to Melissa Leo.

Ugh. Runners up: Missi Pyle, Viola Davis, and Anna Faris.

6. The Cirque du Soleil performance was a bit random, I suppose, but since it was also one of the only interesting parts of the Oscars, I was cool with it.

7. Best Presenter? Chris Rock. The animation bit was hilarious. Second best? Emma Stone. Her thing with Ben Stiller was okay . . . he seemed kind of awkward to me . . . but I like the way she commits.

8. Best Speech: Christopher Plummer

“Only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?”

Love.

Runner up for Best Speech:

Less because it was particularly eloquent and more because it was sweet and seemed honest. (Although a speech like this is exactly the reason I would write something out ahead of time, whether I thought I was going to win or not . . . you know, in the exceptionally unlikely event that I am ever nominated for an Academy Award. I would be a blubbering mess. There’s no point in denying it. Tears, tears everywhere.)

9. It’s one thing to play someone off the stage. It’s quite something else to completely turn off a winner’s mic. Academy, you bastards.

10. Finally, there was a movie montage very early in the ceremony. I’m a sucker for a good movie montage, so I was pretty happy . . . until I saw the, er, progression of said montage. We went from Forrest Gump (Best Picture Winner) to Titanic (Best Picture Winner) to . . . Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part One (wait, WHAT?).

Sometimes, Academy, it’s really hard to take you seriously.